Caliber of Resilience
by kracken23
Summary: The TARDIS lands on a peaceful planet and refuses to move. The Doctor and her gang soon realize something is not as it should be, and attempt to make things right. After an act to protect her companions, Graham, Ryan and Yaz find themselves having to save her, too. Rated T for blood. Story is complete.
1. Chapter 1

**Hi all, I hope you enjoy my story. It was my goal for it to read like an episode and keep the characters as true to form as I interpret them. Some chapters are much longer than others, but I think it has a good flow. Comments and/or constructive criticism is always welcome. I do not own Doctor Who, just a big fan.**

DAY 2: MORNING

"It's nothing," she said, clenching her jaw and catching his wrist.

"Seriously, Doc-" he advances his arm another inch or so until she increased her resistance against him.

"I said it's nothing." she hissed. They were talking in teethy whispers, and the Doctor continually flicked her eyes to over Graham's shoulder, reassuring herself that Yaz and Ryan were not listening. She met Graham's pleading glare again, and implored him, "Just for now, it has to be nothing. Please."

The older man let his eyes flit over the front of the Doctor's coat, his hand still being stalled by hers, only inches from the lapel. She stood very awkwardly, her hips back and leaning forward ever-so-slightly. He had only just noticed the slightly deeper breaths she had started to take. In all of their travels to date, running had never been a problem of hers, but the past hour of sprinting for their lives had the Doctor behind all of them, in Graham's usual position, breathing hard, speaking less.

Graham was not sure if the younger ones had noticed the Doctor's strange behavior since the attack at the temple, but he had. He kept replaying the memory of her body being thrown over the stone landing; though he remembered her bouncing back up with hardly amiss breath. He knew she did not sleep last night, but that was hardly out of character, since he had never seen her sleep before. When they risked taking breaks, she would stand still, and _that_ was weird, since she usually paced in a line or small circle.

He murmured, "I'm not letting this go."


	2. Chapter 2

DAY 1: MORNING

_The TARDIS had landed and refused to move. _

"_You know good and well this is not Captiva Copernicus," the Doctor had muttered, interpreting the screen above the console. "And here I was, thinking you'd enjoy a power wash from the Iotee tribe." _

"_Are you blackmailing the TARDIS?" Yaz asked gently, but with a smile._

"_I was aiming for 'bribery'." The Doctor shrugged and tried, unsuccessfully, to get them to dematerialize. The machine responded with an angry wheeze, and the console screen blinked off. _

"_So where are we then?" Graham asked, resigned to knowing if the Tardis did not want to go, they were damn well stuck until it changed its mind. _

"_Rospera, roughly translated," she fiddled with another screen, "Rather tranquil, some very exciting species of flora. An indigenous arboreal species of fauna called Sapilin, somewhat primitive, but very amazing. Kind, naturalistic tree-people, more or less. Never met them myself, but they're known for their gentle nature, very similar to to Ood, though less...codependent shall we say," Ryan and Yaz exchange a confused look and mouth 'Ood' to each other as she continues, "Only twenty-sixth century. Hm, nothing really looks out of order."_

"_Oh, yeah, fantastic. That's always reassuring, innit?" Graham rolled his eyes and crossed his arms, "We're in the botanical gardens from hell, aren't we?"_

_Yaz spiritedly shook her head, "No, remember on Paladima when the Tardis stalled so we could see those fireworks over the canals? That was amazin'."_

_Ryan interjected, "Won't know 'til we have a look round, won't we?" _

"_That's the spirit!" the Doctor beamed. "Oh, very exciting. Terrestrial nav says there's some Obsidian temples north of here. A day's hike. Obsidian the deity, not the rock. Very popular religion in this galaxy. I can tell you the canonization while we walk." _

"_I think a hike sounds lovely," Yaz nodded. _

_Ryan had moved towards the doors as the Doctor spoke, and opened one. He grinned as he stuck his head out, jaw dropping, letting the door fall open, "Now that is proper mad!"_

_Beyond to door of ship was an expanse of blue, green, and silvery forest; thick trees so tall they were touching the pink, cloudless sky. The dozen meters or so between the rocky surface the TARDIS had landed on and the tree line was an ocean of leaves. Not ground littered in downed leaves, no, an actual, rustling, swaying body of foliage that stretched beyond the eye's view from left to right, and was producing a sound akin to babbling water._

_The Doctor joined Ryan in his awe, briefly sonicing the foliage-river, "Neat. Only six centimeters deep, we can walk through it I should think. Temple's that way." She pointed haphazardly to a section of silvery-blue trees, and then calls over her shoulder, grinning from ear to ear, "Best pack a bag, let's go camping!"_


	3. Chapter 3

_DAY 1: AFTERNOON_

The hike had been completely enjoyable, though, to Graham's dismay was about eight hours long. They stopped occasionally to enjoy the scenery; most memorable was a clearing of the most peculiar field of silver flowers, slightly metallic and stiff which creaked as they swayed in the breeze; another was another river of leaves, deeper and with a harsher current to where they had left the ship, uncrossable and fed by a monstrous wooden dam; and another was a fountain, similar to a geyser, which continuously spouted a shower of gleaming sand as opposed to water. The geyser made a sound similar to music, as the course grey sand showered down on the surrounding earth. "Is that metal too?" Yaz had asked, trying to categorize the sound the laminate-looking sand was making. The Doctor, like she had done with the flowers, pointed her sonic at the phenomenon and interpreted the reading, "Bits are. It's naturally occuring, trying to purge the pressure the ore makes as it moves under the crust. Must be what moves the foliage like water, too. Magnificent, yeah?"

"That's not natural though, is it?" Ryan was turned around and looking up. Several meters away there was, for lack of a better term, a treehouse, a couple of stories off the ground and wrapped around the trunk on a thick blue-green tree. The circular fort glints in the sunshine coming through the branches above, it is constructed out of metal. "Thought you said the natives were naturalists, only use rocks and sticks and stuff. Who managed that?"

"That, Ryan," the Doctor stood beside him, "is an excellent question. Come on, gang."

They made for the metal ladder at the trunk, leading up to the platform. Graham shook his head, "Ain't no good gonna come out of this, mark my words."

"Oh, don't be such a downer, Graham!" the Doctor calls as she ascends the ladder.

Graham calls up to her as he queues being his grandson, "Mysterious steel house on a planet supposed to just have stone igloos, where the TARDIS forced us to snoop around? I ain't being a downer, Doc, I'm being rational."

Once inside, other than the view the vantage point made of the rest of the forest, the treehouse was rather unimpressive. The view from the platform revealed a landscape of trees dabbling out the pink light from the three suns in the sky, the leaf-river winding its way to nearly the base of the treehouse and then out of site, another sand-geyser off the the horizon. The treehouse itself was bare and blank. The structure wrapped entirely around the trunk of the tree was built on, the trunk ran through the center of what was almost an empty room, circumvented by a column of metal, so no wood was visible. There is no door, only a door frame, and no glass in the windows that are spaced several feet apart, all the way around the room, giving the feeling of almost being open. There is a metal desk without a chair, and a couple of shelves, otherwise the treehouse is bare. On the shelves are two things: a small notebook, made of impossibly thin sheets of metal foil rather than paper, and a small pry bar that is about twelve inches long.

Yaz is the one who picks up the notebook, and flips through its shiny pages. She couldn't make out some of the writing, which seemed etched into the pages, a lot of it was diagrams and single, disjointed sentences about frequencies, oscillations, sediment, and prayer.

The Doctor was busy inspecting the column that ran from ceiling to floor, a large rectangle was engraved into it at one point, "Hm. Interesting." She trails her fingers down the panel.

Ryan appears next to her, holding the pry-bar. He shows it to her, "Context clue, maybe?"

"Another brilliant job, well done," she beams and steps back so he can jam the bar into the seam of the panel and pop it out of place. Doing so reveals a complex series of circuits, wires, and turned-off lights integrated into the trunk of the tree. The Doctor is immediately using her sonic, "It's a generator of sorts. Built out of parts of a ship. In fact, the whole treehouse is scraps of a ship."

"Generator for what? There's no lights or anything around here," Graham points out.

"Does this help?" Yaz turns over the notebook to the Doctor, who flips through it quickly.

"It's mostly specs on building the generator. It's supposed to disrupt EMF waves."

"There's letters, too," Yaz indicates, "To someone named...I think it's pronounced Venarill? Signed from Ravanac."

"What's he say?" Ryan asks.

"Mostly apologies," the Doctor says, thumbing through the pages, "Seems like Ravanac wasn't here on purpose." She starts reading one out loud:

"_Dearest Venarill, I regret these words, even though I have no way of getting them to you. I was trapped in the gravitational pull while passing by, I don't even know the name of the planet. The _Mentague _wasn't designed for the landing she took, and I see her destroyed. I hate to think of the impact of such a simple accident; the rations will never reach Edityne, all of our hard work gone; you will never know what happened; Geratous and Blethamine will know me only in stories. I'm sorry. Kiss the children for me_." the Doctor pauses, swallows hard, and flips to another letter,

"_Dearest Venarill, I think the consequence of my misfortune are greater than assumed. This place is delicate, was was was delicate. I think the nuclear core from the _Mentague _has disturbed the balance. How, through a fault of the universe, is it that I feel guilt? But still…Kiss the children._

"_Dearest Venarill, I will fix this. If not Edityne, I will fix this nameless rock. I will use the salvageable engines. It's doable. I just need some time, and that, my dearest, I find myself with an abundance of. Kiss the children."_

The Doctor pauses again and skims through the letters, between the pages of nonsensical notes. "He starts to make less and less sense. Or there are missing pages? Or madness? Here's the last entry:

"_Dearest Venarill, I go. Fate or forgiveness, one happens sooner than the other. Kiss the children."_

The group is quiet, uneasy as she closes the notebook. Graham offers, "Maybe the bloke's here somewhere, we can take him home."

The Doctor gives a solemn headshake, "The letters are dated, almost half a century ago. Edityne was a humanoid colony in the twenty-fifth century, they don't exist in the twenty-sixth. Whatever happened to Ravanac, I'm afraid it happened a long time ago."

"Then why did the TARDIS leave us here?" Yaz asks incredulously.

"I don't know yet, but I suspect we will soon." she reassures, then recounts what they know, "Okay, so a seemingly random shuttle operator accidently crash lands on a primeval planet, the components of his engine damage the ecosystem somehow with undisclosed results, he goes mad and lives out his final days trying to remedy it, and some portion of that solution involves him building this generator, which doesn't work, to do...something. Alright, everything is so clear."

Graham pulls a face, "Yep, crystal, I am so attuned to what is going on."

She pockets the notebook and claps Graham on the shoulder as she heads for the door.


	4. Chapter 4

DAY 1: EVENING

The Obsidian temple was nothing short of breathtaking. Grey-purple stones of various sizes were intricately stacked to create a rough pyramid shape, the size of a football pitch, towering and tapering to a point nearly four stories high. The stones had random latticeworks of vines clinging to their seams. The setting suns cast a wide net of blues, oranges, pinks, bouncing off the slightly iridescent structure, bathing the field it was built on in a pool of rainbows.

"Alright," Ryan is the first to speak, "That's ace."

"Can we go up it?" Yaz asks.

"Yes, Obsidian is a very welcoming creed. Visitors encouraged." the Doctor answers.

Graham immediately takes off his backpack and sets it at the base of the nearest tree. Ryan asks him why he did so. "I ain't about to climb a million stairs with an exercise weight, am I?"

Everyone laughs, and agrees, the Doctor even takes of her coat and lays it atop her pack after fishing the sonic screwdriver from its pocket and tucking it into the waistband of her trousers.

They approach and start up the asymmetrical steps. The Doctor stops, while the others continue their climb as she studies the interloping vines along the steps. She scrunches her eyebrows and says to herself, "Weird. These are a different material than what's in the trees." As she starts rummaging for her Sonic, she hears Yaz scream, "Doctor!"

She doesn't get the chance to turn around because suddenly a section of vine has lifted off the stones and has wrapped around her ankle. In a swift motion the sentient rope snaps her up in the air and easily tosses her several steps below. Once she stops rolling she looks first ahead of her to see her companions rushing towards her, then behind her to see the vines coiled on the steps below start to writhe and raise and ascend. She scrambles to her feet and hollers to the others, "No, up, up, up!"

The gang, seeing she is okay and the coalition of creepers start to come alive on the steps below, turn and start to race up the steps; the Doctor follows. Glancing backwards she notices the vines start to coalesce, and roughly form bodies, able to take the stairs without traditional steps-no, not like a biped, but rather form one leg in front of the other in rapid succession. They're big, coiled tendrils of vines, dressed in ivy, with cobbled, gnarled faces, which make quick, creaky, serpentine movements. There's more than a dozen of them in almost an instant. Several extend arm-like limbs, draped in vines and metallic moss, letting their tapered and razor sharp projections sweep after the Doctor and her mates with incredible strength.. They miss, and crash into the stone steps, knocking some loose and shattering some entirely.

"I thought you said they were peaceful!" Graham huffs as the Doctor catches up with him first.

The Doctor has her Sonic pointed behind her as the runs, "Something's wrong!"

"Oh, really?!"

She deciphers the sonic's readings as they reach the plateau of the temple, a grand pavilion littered with more iridescent stones, some as big as cars, all arranged in some sort of significant set of circles. "Aha, gotcha! Shouldn't do wood, but the wood here is funny. Got bits of ore in it," she reads the screwdriver and then beckons the others, "Here, quickly!"

"Okay, I know what the letters were saying!" The Doctor whispers loudly as they all huddle behind a purplish boulder, "The core of Ravanac's engine must have broken apart in the atmosphere and scattered across the planet. It must have interrupted the magnetic fields that the flowing ore creates under the surface of the planet's crust. The Sapilin's are very intuned with those fields, like birds, or butterflies. The disruption changed their behaviour, they became cruel and territorial. Ravanac noticed the change and wanted to correct it, to help someone if it was the last thing he did, but it was impossible for him to gather the chunks of engine core that were embedded everywhere. So," she excitedly taps the foil notebook, "He built the generator to emit a signal that would correct the disruption. BUT, the generator didn't have enough power."

"So if we find a way to charge the generator and turn it on, the monsters will become peaceful?" Ryan asks.

"Thumbs up to Ryan Sinclair," the Doctor beams, "A little radiation boost from the TARDIS and the generator is good to go! The elemental core will eventually degrade so that the generator isn't necessary, but it could take another millenium. So, fam, plan-Oh, Fam Plan, that sounds brilliant!"

"Doctor," Yaz urges, peeking over the boulder to the sound of approaching cracking and rustling.

"Right, sorry, plan: I'll distract our guests, you all run down the south steps, I'll meet you by our bags. Then we'll leg it to the TARDIS, turn up the radiation, pop back to the treehouse, turn on the generator, and the Sapilins get to go back to normal."

"Distract them how?" Yaz asks.

The Doctor grins, "Like so," and hops up from her crouched position, "Oi! Jeepers creepers!" she shouts and starts sprinting into the shadows of the pavillion.

"Doctor, no!" Yaz squeaks, but it's too late, she's out of site and a stampede of Sapilins rush by.

"Come on," Graham orders, "Just do what she says." He hoists himself up and off they go.

Back through the pavillion and down the countless steps, across the grey-grass field until they are at the base of the tree where their belongings rest. The trio shuffle their packs back on as they catch their breath.

Graham picks up the Doctor's coat and bag, ready to hand it to her when she appears.

After a moment or so in the undramatic quiet, Yaz asks, "Think she's alright?"

A single, feminine, far away scream answered her.

Ryan, Yaz and Graham wordlessly take off back towards the temple. They're almost at its base when the Doctor apparates from the other side of the building, quickly slinking towards them along the wall, "What did I say? Get to the woods."

They turn and start to jog as Ryan says, "We heard you scream."

"Victory screech," the Doctor huffs, yanking her coat from Graham and pulling it on as they moved. She then takes her backpack and dons it. Graham can't help but notice a change in her face as she pulls on the straps. She draws the corners of her mouth back and blinks a few times too many.

"You're alright then?" Graham asks, suspiciously.

"Never better, now let's run for our lives, yeah?" she grits as she marches forward.


	5. Chapter 5

DAY 2: AFTERNOON

"Gah!" the Doctor exclaimed quietly, dropping fluidly to one knee.

Yaz, being the closest to her, rounded about and knelt beside her, "What is it? What's wrong?" She automatically threw an arm around the Doctor and glanced backwards into the darkness, the sound of snapping and crunching of trees and foliage growing louder, quicker, closer.

The Doctor grabbed onto her companion, "Running stitch," she huffed and hauled herself up with Yaz's help.

Yaz steadied her a little, noting that she was dripping in sweat, "Doctor, please."

"The TARDIS is just up ahead," the Doctor says pointedly. Graham and Ryan were now beside them, having doubled back when they noticed the women had stopped.

"I hate it when those stitches come on," Graham says with a weird cheeriness. He comes around to the Doctor's other side, "Reminds me of my age. Here, best walk it out," He takes the Doctor's arm and nods for Yaz and Ryan to continue. They younger pair cautiously turn and start to power walk towards the sound of the leaf-river.

The Doctor gives Graham a confused look, who shakes his head and whispers, "Strike two, Doc."

The Doctor waits a moment before forcing a smile, "Have I ever told you I invented American baseball?" She gently takes her arm from his and takes a step ahead. In the dappled light from the trees he makes out thick red wheal of swollen skin on the back of her neck, disappearing beneath her coat collar. He says nothing.

"Uh, we've got a problem," Ryan announces as he crosses the treeline, into the clearing where the TARDIS should be, "It's not here."

Instead, the river of leaves that had been a simple creek yesterday, was now roaring and churning, all the way to the cliff's edge that had been just a landing of rock previously.

"No, no, no," the Doctor mumbles in disbelief, producing her screwdriver and surveying the river, "The dam must've opened, flooded the river. The TARDIS got swept away. Oh, she'll be miles away now. Hold on, I installed a bit of sat-nav since the Desolation fiasco." The Doctor puts her hand on her forehead in frustration as she reads the screwdriver, "Yeah, the TARDIS is another five miles away, swept to a ravine. We'll have to find a way round this, and then hike. The ravine means a bit of a cliff climb, too," she glances at Ryan, who she knew would be most uncomfortable with the idea, who made a disappointed face, "I'd really rather not".

Behind them there is a snapping sound that causes them all to turn and stare into the daunting darkness. Emerging from the background of beautiful trees and shrubs are a dozen of anthropomorphic forms, consisting of creepers and vines and hollowed spaces for eyes.

"What now?" Yaz asks through gritted teeth as they all back up to the bank of the river, "Should we try and swim?"

"Wait a minute," the Doctor says, noticing the Sapilins stop advancing. They're just a few meters off, inclining their gnarled heads from side to side. In fact, they were moving back a little bit. The Doctor realizes, "The river, they don't like the river. Must be something to do with the ore."

The creatures had retreated enough so that they were barely visible. The tension of the moment eased minutely. The Doctor exclaims, "Of course, the ore beneath the river repulses them! That's how Ravanac stayed safe in the treehouse, the river runs right by it!"

"Okay, plan revision," the Doctor looks from face to face, "Yaz and Ryan, go back to the treehouse, follow the river, be careful. Graham and I will go to the TARDIS and turn on the radiation field. The TARDIS is too far from the generator now, but if we turn it on when the suns rise we should be okay. When you see the blue light from the TARDIS in the sky, that's your signal, turn on the generator. Just toggle the green button on the panel."

"Why sunrise?" Yaz questions.

"That's when the planet should be close enough to the suns to boost the signal. Have you noticed it hottest at dawn and dusk? Rospera doesn't rotate on its axis to create day and night, it has three very uniquely positioned suns, which affect electromagnetic waves. We are closest to the suns at dawn and dusk, that's when their influence is the strongest. Wouldn't be a problem if the TARDIS hadn't drifted away, but alas," she gestures to the river. "Okay, remember, see the signal, flip the switch. If we miss the time frame, the signal won't be strong enough and the generator won't power on. No big deal, but then we'll have to wait until the suns set."

Ryan offers Graham a fist-bump, "Don't let the killer trees get ya, gramps."

"And you two be careful." Graham responds.

"Best of luck," the Doctor tells the younger pair, before turning and beckoning Graham to follow...


	6. Chapter 6

DAY 2: NIGHTTIME

"We can camp here for the night," Graham suggests carefully, seeing the disagreement on the Doctor's face, "We can't reach the TARDIS until the first sun comes up anyway, the cliff is too dangerous. And the Sapilins are too freaked out by the leaf-Niagra Falls thing to get any closer." He's reluctant to offer stopping, but she had fallen behind him considerably. They had stopped jogging, and to instead hiking at an awkward fast-paced walk, to what was now nearly a stagger; and Graham had started to pull ahead, so much so that he would occasionally lose sight of her behind brush and trees when he glanced over his shoulder. He had also noticed she had started breathing a little louder.

She shakes her head, somewhat breathless, ""We miss flipping the switch by the tertiary sunrise, we have to wait until sunset, the farther the TARDIS drift downstream, we risk it falling out of range. What'dya reckon Ryan and Yaz will think, anyway?" "

"I don't like it either, but they're safe at the treehouse and they know to stay put. And they know that they might have to wait until tomorrow night anyway. I think it's better if we rest."

She takes a deep, poignant breath through her nose, placing her hands very slowly on her hips and bowing her head, "Nonsense. We can make it now."

Graham scratched his head, "Doc, seriously. You don't want to admit that there's something up with you, fine. But I am telling you it is not safe to keep at it right now."

She doesn't respond, only hangs her head further. In the bright grey bath of the moonlight, the Doctor starts to sway. "Doc?" Graham instinctively moves closer, his hands come out of his pockets and one hovers behind her.

"It's just a little while," she mutters, but it's as if it's to herself, soft and personal. She leans forward now, still minutely swaying.

"Doc? What's the matter?" Graham says rather loudly.

"It's just...just...ugh," her voice trails off and ends in a heavy shudder, and suddenly her body goes lax and she drops to the forest floor.

Her companion exclaims a sound of horror as he watches her fall. He manages to trap her shoulders in his waiting hands, and awkwardly sits her down, rather than letting her fall uncontrolled, "Easy, now."

She sits with her legs out in front of her, her hands bracing the earth on either side, keeping her upright. She lets out a terrible groan and shakes her head, as if trying to clear her mind.

Graham, crouches beside her, trying to capture her attention, "Alright, Doctor, that's enough. What's the matter?"

"I...don't feel very well," she admits through gritted teeth.

He tried to soften his features as he leans in a tad closer, "Okay, what's going on? I ain't much, but I can try to help."

The Doctor still mumbles with her face down, eyes scrunched together, "Safe at the treehouse…"

It is now Graham notices that her yellow braces are not over her shoulders, but instead are hanging down around her legs, still attached to the waistband of her trousers. He instinctively stands and tentatively sticks his index finger down the back of the Doctor's shirt collar. Almost apologetically, he pulls it back enough to reveal the scabbed welt running down from the nape of her neck he had gotten glimpses of earlier. He can't see much other than the welt disappearing in the darkness between her shirt and her back, but she hisses a little, and leans away from his touch. Graham confirms unnecessarily, "You're hurt."

"It's not bad." the Doctor admonishes quietly.

"Sure, apart from you not being able to stand." He retorts, "I knew you wasn't right. Why didn't you say anything? You should 'ave stayed with the kids."

"I said it's nothing." There is no fire in her voice, it's like someone has flipped a switch. Graham acknowledges that she had been acting strangely since the temple, reserved and quiet, but now suddenly she seems far away, barely committed to pretending everything is okay. She isn't even looking at him, but rather blinking a little more than necessary, as if unable to focus her eyes. She's pale, even in the moonlight, she's not the correct hue; beads of sweat are collecting on her nose; and she still sways lightly even though she's sitting. She says sadly, "They didn't mean it."

"Didn't mean what?" he presses.

"They're confused...minds poisoned by the magnetic shift...Didn't mean to hit me."

Graham considerately presses a palm to her forehead, causing some of her blonde fringe to stick to the sweat. "Doc, I think I need to have a look at ya." He says seriously, moving his hand to the Doctor's knee, trying to convey the brevity of their situation, willing her to try her hand at being honest.

The Doctor finally makes eye contact with him. She gives an almost unperceivable nod and drops her gaze again as she whispers, "I'm sorry."

Graham, grateful, sets to work and digs his UV-b lantern from his pack. The moonlight provided plenty of light beneath the luminescent trees, but he felt an actual torch would be helpful. The Doctor was making no movements, so he then cautiously places his hands on her shoulders, indicating to her pack and coat. "I'm going to take this off, yeah?" He awkwardly pretended to ask for permission.

He himself was never one for touching, so he would admit that as he eased the backpack off and discarded it, even with signs that it provided the Doctor with some sort of relief, he felt tense. And removing her coat felt downright inappropriate. He gathered the lapels in his hands and carefully started to peel it away. The Doctor suppressed a groan, unconsciously turning away, shutting her eyes tight. Graham continued without pause, but rather added a number of hushed reassurances, "Alright, nearly there, deep breaths, that's it."

Graham even maintained his calm demeanor as he realized the inside of the coat was caked in a day's worth of blood. He nonchalantly folded the coat into a neat rectangle. Looking in the light of the lantern, ribbons are all that remain of the back of the Doctor's blue shirt, the collar of the shirt the only thing still holding in place, the rest is shredded into irregular strips of fabric, now stiff and adhered to the woman's back. His mouth hangs open in disbelief, suddenly clearly picturing the Sapilin form in his mind, contorted and coiled, two meters tall, with limbs aggregated from ropey vines. In his mind, he can see it happening, a Sapalin savagely whipping the Doctor with one or two strokes as she led the creatures away from Graham, Ryan and Yaz. The Doctor had screamed once during the fight, and then donned her coat and her pack as if nothing had happened and they escaped, that had been that.

_My_ _god_, he thought to himself in revelation.

He swallowed against a dry mouth and leaning in close to the Doctor, saying softly, "Doc, I think you need to lie down, okay? Can you do that? If I helped you?"

"It's not that bad, really." she replies, "Just a moment, I'll be fine."

Graham solemnly ignores her and cautiously, but firmly, places his hands on her upper arms. The Doctor noticeably stiffens, but lets him continue without protest. He simultaneously rolls her to one side while lying her flat, so that she's facedown on the forest floor. Graham wedges her folded coat beneath her head. She's breathing hard and fast by the time they're through, and they both sit quietly for nearly a minute.

Graham had let his hands linger on the Doctor's head from lifting it to place her rolled coat as a cushion, and he eventually breaks the silence, "You're awfully warm."

The Doctor mutters, "Just from the running."

He does not argue, even though he does not agree. They had stopped running nearly thirty minutes ago, and aside from that the night erred on the side of chilly. Graham finally says, "Doc, I'm sorry, but I have to take a look."

There is a solid ten seconds of silence before she answers, "Alright." Her voice is quiet, and though her eyes are open she is looking sideways, distantly at the trees, her face partially obscured by a curtain of blonde hair. Beyond being in pain, she seems...defeated.

"I," Graham leans forward on his knees and admits, "I think your shirt is ruined."

The Doctor smiles at his macabre joke, "Shame."

He argues silently with himself for several seconds about how he was going to move the material out of the way; it was without a doubt adhered to the wounds, pulling her shirt away strip by strip would be cautious, but painstaking; pulling the lot up all at once would be quicker, but agonizing.

"It's okay," the Doctor says suddenly, as if able to read his mind, "I'm fine. Use a bit of the water to make the material damp, then peel it all away. One motion. You're not gonna cause any more damage."

"Right," he answers quickly, grateful for the guidance, and produces his canteen of water, about half full. He uncaps it and lets it hover above her back, "Uh, I imagine this may sting. On three. One, two," the Doctor nods minutely in understanding, "_Three." _Graham splashes a moderate amount of water across her back, trying as efficiently as possible to get almost all of the material.

The Doctor presses her head into her coat/pillow, making a small noise of surprise, but she doesn't scream. Graham does not let her relax, taking as much of what used to be the hem of the shirt between his fingers and gives it a swift tug. The motion is met with some resistance, but it doesn't last as he scrunches the destroyed fabric up to her neck.

"I'm so sorry, cockle, all done now." He breathlessly reassures, placing a hand on top of her head.

She does not answer, breathing audibly into the fabric of the coat, letting her hands ball into fists.

He leaves his hand on her head, hoping to convey some sort of comfort, while his other hand tentatively picks up his battery-operated lantern and brings it closer to his friend. Graham holds his breath.

There are nearly a dozen marks. Three or four are raised welts, with varying lengths of skin that have been broken open and were now scabbed over; bright red and weeping small amounts of blood, a result friction from her backpack while running no doubt. Another four are worse than that, open canals in the skin traversing from shoulder to hip, which are steadily oozing. However traumatizing those wounds were, they paled in comparison to three blatantly open rents which ran parallel to each other, from left shoulder diagonally to her right waistband, deep, revealing layers of skin and muscle, like a razor through shaving cream. The culmination of wounds are so swollen and inflamed that it creates a landscape on her skin, peaks and valleys and rivers, between each gouge where there should be recognizable skin is dried, flaking blood.

Graham is uncharacteristically speechless. _How was she possibly functioning? How had she not said anything?_ What he managed to say was, "Are you out of your bloody nut?"

The Doctor tries to lift her head, "I'm sure it looks worse than it is. No need to-"

As mad as he his, he's gentle in pressing her head back down. Despite the careful action, his tone is furious, "You stay the hell down. I can not actually believe you." His words are spaced out as he is angrily taking in a breath between each one, "This is serious, Doc. I don't even know what to say."

The Doctor's voice was stronger now, ready to argue, as she attempts to make eye contact through the corner of her eye up at him, "Makin' a fuss would have just created undue worry-"

Graham interrupted her again, "_Undue worry?_ You're torn to bleedin' shreds. How were you even walking? Do you realize how irresponsible this is? You-you could've bled t' death, could've passed out, could've went over that ledge thing by the river! You thought you were gonna climb down the cliff to the TARDIS?" He pauses to take a calming breath, and manages to see what can only be shame on the Doctor's face. He lowers his volume, "This was too reckless, when you are so important, to too many people. Do you understand?"

She was well over thirty times his age, but she felt like a scolded child as she dropped her gaze and whispered, "Yeah."

Graham stands up and paces back and forth a little, scrubbing his face with his hand, muttering to himself more than to her, "I-I am getting too old for this. What am I supposed to do?"

"I can still walk," the Doctor tries to defend herself.

"The hell you can." Graham interrupted.

The Doctor continues, undeterred, "Graham, listen. Just have to make it to the TARDIS. Listen...listen, there's a yellow dial on the console, the size of a cellphone. Turn that three full rotations to the right, then push the two pink buttons beside it until it clicks."

"Why are you telling me that? What are you doing?" he asks, somewhat panicked at the Doctor manages to shuffle her coat from beneath her head and awkwardly turn the pockets inside out without moving her arm too much.

"Just in case. Just in case I can't. Here's the key to the TARDIS door," she lays it in the dirt beside her, as if suddenly unable to lift her hand, "Once you've finished, there's a grey foot pedal beside the custard cream dispenser, step down on it two and a half times. It'll hone in on the sonic, and come pick me up. Once the magnetic field is restored, the TARDIS should be willing to move."

"You want me to wait until you get worse, leave you amongst the homicidal weeds and go press all sorts of buttons on a ship that continuously hides the loo from me? Have you actually lost it?" He groans in frustration and kneels back down beside her, "Doc, I can't do this."

She manages to reach forward and pat his knee, "Have a little faith, eh." She shuts her eyes and visibly relaxes.

Graham lets out an annoyed exhale, swipes the key from the dirt and pockets it. While she's unconscious he decides to try to cover her back. The only thing usable he has is his sleeping bag and the canvas he was meant to hang as a tent. He ashamedly decides to go through the Doctor's pack to see if there's anything in it he can use as first aid. It felt awkward and invasive, but a necessary evil. He talks aloud to warn her what he's doing, but she doesn't stir.

The Doctor's pack is...perplexing. She has a small blue sleeping bag, a pair of rolled-up socks, a deflated inner tube from a bicycle, a box of open chalk, her uncharged, dead cell phone, about a hundred loose, blank 3x5 index cards, a canteen filled with what Graham could only decern was _not_ water, a dozen bendy straws rubber-banded together. He stopped digging after he found a misprinted copy of _Murder on the Orient Express_ but the pages were printed backwards so that the first chapter was last, the last chapter missing entirely. Graham closed the bag and set it aside, mumbling, "You know, even for an alien you're a strange bird."

He opted to cut a square out of the canvas he had, and tenderly laid it over her back, timidly tucking it around her a little. It wasn't absorbent, but he felt it would stick less to the open wounds than his sleeping bag.

And then he sat and waited, alone with his thoughts.


	7. Chapter 7

She stirs at the sound of Graham knocking boughs together. He's seated beside her prone form, working quietly. She opens her eyes and watches him for a moment before scratchily whispering, "We building a fort?"

He pauses to show a sad, what was supposed to be reassuring smile, "A litter."

"Shame, I love a fort," she was obviously fighting to keep her eyes open, "A litter for what?"

He resumes lashing two branches together with the length of cord he had divided with his small travel shears, "You. You're going back to the treehouse."

She makes a feeble, halfhearted attempt to rebuke, but he shakes his head, "I'll have none of that. The TARDIS is another four hour walk, on working legs.

"I can't up and leave you alone here, for god-knows-what to find you. I can still hear the Creeper People, moving around, and you're getting worse. Either way, the treehouse is only a couple of kilometers. I'll take you back there, me and Yaz will go to the TARDIS and turn on the radiation thingy, Ryan will do the generator. Bing, bang, boom, day saved and all that. Yaz and I will come pick you two up in the ship, using the foot-gear thing like you said."

He is worried when she doesn't try to argue. She had been worsening over the last half hour, shivering and muttering nonsensical sounds, and now, even though her eyes were open, she looks even more far away than when they were closed.

It takes Graham nearly half an hour to tie together enough branches to create a plank a little wider than the Doctor's body. He pads it with the remaining canvas he hadn't used to cover the Doctor's wounds, uses a braid of vines to create a rein of sorts, and ta-dah he had a very crude looking sleigh. He knows it must be torture, but eventually he helps her shimmy onto the litter. She bites her tongue and feebly lifts herself enough for Graham to slide the contraption beneath her. "There we go," he encourages, "Riding in style, now." He offers her a forced, cheesy grin, sweeps a lock of her hair off her face.

She says once she's eventually caught her breath, "I didn't know Grace," Graham freezes when the Doctor says it, "But I can't help but think of how proud she would be of you."

Graham passes his hand over her hair again, "Yeah? I wish I could thank her, you know. She showed me how important it was to take care of other people. I wish..I wish I'd done it more with her here." He shakes his head and forces another smile, "Anyway, your chariot awaits." He dusted off his pants and took the rope in his hands, and then started the longest short journey of his life, dragging the body of the Doctor along the bank of the river.


	8. Chapter 8

DAY 2: MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT

"-an!" Ryan heard distantly, slowly waking him from sleep. He lay there a moment, listening to what he could have sworn was the wind calling his name.

"_Ryan! Ryan, Yaz."_

By then Yaz also stirred. She sleepily asked him, "You hear that?"

"_Ryan, Yaz, come on you lot!"_

"Graham!" both of them shot up and scrambled out of their sleeping bags and towards the doorless door frame.

Beneath where they stood on the wrap-around platform, twenty feet below was Graham. Beside Graham on the ground was the prone form of the Doctor.

Ryan and Yaz both exclaimed, "Oh my god!" before tripping over themselves to race to the metal ladder.

Yaz descended first and threw herself beside the makeshift litter, "What happened?"

Yaz made a move to touch the Doctor's shoulder, but Graham stopped her, "No, be careful. She's in a bad way. Turns out she took a whipping at the temple. She tried to hide it, but she went over on our way to the TARDIS. I didn't have a choice, I had to bring her back."

The young woman opted for placing a hand on the Doctor's face as Graham explained, and she recoiled at the Doctor's temperature, "Jesus, she's burning up." Yaz looks up somewhat incredulously at the older man, who is drenched in sweat, carrying two backpacks and nursing a monsterous blister on his right hand from the reins, "You carried her all the way here?"

Graham nods at the litter, "Dragged, more or less. Not bad for an old bus driver, eh?"

By then Ryan had made it down the ladder, "Man," he surveyed the Doctor, "How are we meant to get her up there?"

Both Yaz and Graham looked suspiciously at him. Ryan vehemently shook his head. "No way. I'll drop her!"

"Listen, son," Graham claps a hand on his shoulder, "You're the strongest one here. It's no different than at the warehouse, moving stuff from point A to point B."

"Stuff? That's the Doctor's life, and that's a huge tree."

Yaz intervenes, still with one hand on the Doctor's cheek, "He's right, Ryan. You haven't had any trouble with the ladder yet, and the Doctor needs you to do this. You _can _do it."

Ryan begrudgingly agrees, and with the help of Yaz and Graham, they meticulously hoist the Doctor over his shoulder. The Doctor stirs minimally, letting out a low groan.

Yaz goes up first, Ryan behind her. As Ryan ascends, he whispers to his precious cargo, "All gonna be fine, Doctor. You've got a crack team, we're gonna help you, just hang in there."

To his own amazement, he reaches the steel platform without a hitch. Yaz beckons as he stands up straight, "Alright? Bring her through. Brilliant job, Ryan." he follows her into the circular hut and she gestures to the steel desk, "Let her down here."

Graham now enters the hut, dropping both his and the Doctor's bags by the entrance with much relief. He has the Doctor's rolled up coat in his hands and sets it on the end of the desk as he joins the others in maneuvering the Doctor's body onto the flat surface, so she was facedown, her arms beside her, head turned to one side. Yaz turns on her own battery-powered lantern, its sharp, artificial light illuminating off the metal walls.

"Easy, easy, that's it," Graham encourages as the finally get the Doctor rearranged.

Yaz feels the blood drain from her face as she takes in the actual state the Doctor is in. "She's been hurt since yesterday? Why didn't she say anything?"

"Wish I knew, love. I think she thought she was protecting us from being worried. Plus, you know the Doc, not really into fussing with the personal details."

Yaz swallowed an imaginary stone, and reached for the scrap of canvas covering the Doctor. Very, very carefully she peeled it away. In her sleep, the Doctor grimaced and moaned in pain. Ryan took a literal step back, and tears immediately came to Yaz's eyes.

"No." Ryan said under his breath, as her wounds were uncloaked.

Graham had to admit, it looked worse than it did two hours previously, or maybe in the dark of the forest he failed to notice the thick yellow pus that was being secreted from the edges of the deepest scores. There were some random blue fibers, still adhered to some of the wounds from her jumper.

"We, um," Yaz is trying to compose herself, fighting back tears and saying firmly, "We have to clean this up."

They all slowly start to take undirected initiative. Ryan moves to her feet and makes to remove her boots; Yaz fetches her canteen of water; Graham collects one of the blankets and starts cutting it into usable pieces.

As Yaz cuts the collar of her shirt, the last straggling peice keeping her top functionally a top, and prepares to unhook her bra, the Doctor stirs, "_Nngghh_."

Her breathing increases and she starts to twist her head from side to side. Yaz kneels beside her and places a hand on her cheek, "Hey, hey, hey, easy, Doctor. It's alright, you're okay. Lie still."

"Yaz?" she questions as she blinks, disoriented, "_Ah!"_

"Be still, be still," Yaz reassures, trying to stop her writhing.

"Happened?"

"Well, apparently you took a hell of a whipping at the temple, kept it a secret, then passed out on your way to the TARDIS. Graham brought you back to the treehouse."

"Is he okay?"

"Sure am, Doc," Graham said from behind her, "I'm right here. Needless to say, you will be getting the bill for my physical therapy."

"And Ryan?"

Ryan's face floated in the background, "Right here, of course."

"Safe?"

"Everyone is okay, apart from you. Now Doctor, listen to me," Yaz says seriously, "I know you're in a lot of pain, but your wounds need to be cleaned. It can't wait. Do you understand?"

The Doctor searches Yaz's pleading eyes for a moment before she answers softly, "Hold me down."

Ryan reappears and takes each of her wrists, lowering her arms so that she was forced to give the desk a hug. He leans so that he is in her line of sight. He whispered into her ear, half-joking, to think of facts about acetylene.

Graham leaned over the backs of her knees, potentially leaving one hand free if he needed it.

Yaz unhooks her bra unnecessarily, as it is torn through, so that the deepest of the lashes is continuous from shoulder to hip, the dried blood is what's keeping the garment in place. Yaz peels it away, then having to cut one of the straps; the whip had apparently cut through the other one. Aside from laying on her front, the Doctor's shirt sleeves are still intact, holding her shirt loosely to the front of her body, preserving some form of modesty.

"Okay," Yaz says with a grim expression, wetting the flannel with water, "Here we go."

She starts with a timid, almost too-gentle swipe of the welt at the top of the Doctor's neck, and starts to work downward. The Doctor involuntarily jumps, forcing Ryan and Graham to secure her into place. At first, she is silent, but at Yaz's ministrations move to the deeper lacerations, she accidentally screams. Yaz starts stammering apologies, rinsing the cloth and continuing. The Doctor, between yelps and gritted teeth, forces a couple of harsh sentences, "You're doing brilliantly, everyone. _Ah!_ Keep at it."

Yaz's face is now streaming with tears as she works, so much so that after a couple of minutes, Graham places a gentle hand over hers, silently willing her to switch places. Yaz concedes, forfeiting the cloth and taking up his position keeping the Doctor's legs still. Graham scoots up to her torso, and wordlessly resumes the necessary torture. He swipes away the pus and the blood, scrubbing to loosen the stuck fibers from her shirt, needing to become more and more firm. The Doctor's whole body trembles as she emits a low, continuous whine of agony.

Ryan has her hands locked in his, joined together under the table; his face is resting beside hers on the steel desktop, and he's whispering in her ear, "We're almost done now, just a bit more."

Near the end of the endeavor, she passes out. Yaz and Ryan let up on restraining her now-still body, and Graham continues until the crisscrossed pulp of flesh making up her back is relatively clean. Yaz soaks strips of cloth, then wraps them around her friend. They would undoubtedly dry and stick to the wounds, but the wounds could not simply be left open while the Doctor was in this state. Ryan unzips his sleeping bag so that it opens into a large rectangle, and drapes it over his unconscious friend, up to her waist so as not to irritate her injuries. The Doctor is still trembling, and occasionally she groans.

Yaz finds herself holding one of the Doctor's limp hands, staring at her as she twitches and whines. She looks to Ryan and Graham, "Now what?"


	9. Chapter 9

Someone is humming. The steady thrum eases her back to consciousness, coming down in her mind like waves. She realizes her head is pounding, the humming pulses softly inside her skull. Before she can open her eyes she tries to will the headache away, with little success. Slowly she becomes more and more aware of herself, her neck aches and the front of her body tingles with the weight of lying still too long, and her limbs are leaden and immobile with a bone-deep exhaustion she cannot explain. It's hard to breathe, aside from lying on her chest for who knows how long, there is a burning, tearing pain that worsens and lessens with each intake and exhale, but never fully abates. She is nauseous, but empty. Her mouth is dry, with a sour taste, and she makes a mammoth effort to swallow, to encourage the movement of saliva.

The humming stops. A sensation of warmth envelops her right hand, which is strange, because she cannot orient exactly where her hand was in relationship to the rest of her. Now the humming is gone and she can hear the rustle of tree branches against a metal roof, dancing slowly on the wind. A voice both much too loud and much too quiet starts dragging her even closer to the surface, "Doctor?"

Yasmin Khan had been holding vigil over the wounded Doctor, who had been out for a couple of hours. It was quiet, save for the scraping of the hateful trees against the treehouse, and the sad howl of the wind. She had began to hum, a nonsense tune she couldn't remember where she'd heard before, to try and comfort herself in the eery, natural quiet.

It was also fairly dark, she decided to save the battery of her torch, so the only light in the space was the grey moon bouncing off the shiny walls, welcomed in from the open, glassless windows and door frame. There was enough light for her to make out the new motions starting to take over the Doctor's unconscious features. The Doctor had maintained a tense ere, providing that even in the land of nod she was in agony, but now there is a change in her breathing, and her nose wrinkles as if she had tasted something foul. Yaz recognizes that she is about to wake, leans forward on her knees and takes the Doctor's hand in both of hers, "Doctor?"

The Doctor's face contorts and she mewls in obvious discomfort, her eyes open, and suddenly she tries to rise.

"No, no, no," Yas protests, standing up and holding out her hands as if in a sign of peace.

The Doctor sobs and collapses back on the metal table, panting and gasping for air.

"Hey, now, it's alright. Doctor, look at me, come on now," Yaz frantically pet her hair trying to calm her, "That's it, just try and breathe."

The Doctor blinks, trying to orient herself in the dim, making random noises of distress, "What-what happened?"

"You don't remember?"

She dazedly looks from Yaz to the rest of the room, "I...I feel awful."

"Yeah, you will do," Yaz kneels as close to the table as possible, again holding the Doctor's hand, "Graham and Ryan went to flip the radiation switch. I'll turn on the generator as soon as I get the signal. We were going to wait, you know. But Ryan said you'd go mental if you woke up and we hadn't stopped the broadcast.

"Anyway, we cleaned you up as best we could, but you need some actual attention. You're not bleeding still, but your back is a disaster. That and you're running a fever."

The Doctor makes another attempt at raising her head, "Can...can you help me sit up, please?"

Yaz purses her lips, "I think you really ought to just lie still."

The Doctor offers a morose smile, "I promise not to do a runner… Just really sore from lying like this."

Yaz sighs, but starts to help her friend into a sitting position. The venture is slow, filled with pauses and noises, and from Yaz there's some escaped tears. Eventually, the Doctor is upright, white-knuckled fists gripping the edge of the desktop, trying to stop the room spinning. She mutters, "Ooh, head wonk,"

The police officer has her hands at the ready to catch the Doctor, should she keel over. She stays, allowing for a pause before asking, "Doctor, why didn't you tell us?"

The Doctor has her eyes squeezed shut, "I, _ah,_ it wasn't that bad, really… Had worse… You know, I really thought I could get away, but...this body...isn't as fast. And if you knew the set of knees I had before, _phew_, that's saying something." As she pieces sentences together, grinning unconvincingly at her own joke, Yaz looks at the positioning of the Doctor's hands on the table, and she notices in the dark a matching set deep red welts circumventing both of her wrists. The younger woman nearly reaches out to touch the scratches, instead bringing her fingers to her lips as it occurred to her that the Doctor wasn't merely swiped by a stray Sapilin limb, but rather she had been caught by the creatures...she had been held in place… The mental picture and its connotations made Yaz feel ill.

The blonde blinks and looks up to Yaz, noticing the look of devastation on her face, "Are you alright?"

Yaz has no words at first, she is feeling too many things; she is sad and astounded, and wants nothing more than to hug the Doctor. She is also very, very angry. She scoffs, "Me? _Me?_ Of course I'm not alright, look at you!" She doesn't mean it, but her voice gets louder and louder until she's actually yelling, "I mean, actually look at the state of you! You think this is alright? To be tortured on our behalf? To keep it a secret? Why?" She was coming to the realization that, while she was well aware that the Doctor was not always truthful, she actually had no idea _how often_ and to what degree she was not always truthful. How could she try and hide this? How many other times had she been hurt and said nothing? She could hide being ripped to literal shreds, what else? Yaz whispers, "This is your life...Don't you trust us?"

In the dark, the Doctor's features slowly relax, and transform into a strange form of...sadness...Yaz wasn't sure she'd seen before. The Doctor runs her tongue over her dry lips, thoughtfully, and answers very softly, "It's not a matter of trust, Yasmin Khan. You're right, it was irresponsible, and I'm sorry. I thought I had it under control. You have to understand...I don't always have others around me. I've been around a _long_ time, Yaz, and in a life like this, one learns that sometimes a solitary scope requires...a caliber of resistance."

Yaz sits quietly for a moment or so, letting herself calm down. "Doctor, I can't pretend to know why you are the way you are. And…" she pauses thoughtfully, "I don't think it's my place to try and understand what made you so resilient. I don't expect you to change, that's not fair. But...If it needs saying, you're not alone now. I hope you recognize that. That word you use, _family_? It's not a funny name to us. That word means something, and it demands a little respect."

The Doctor has a strange look on her face. She's not used to being yelled at, and more so she's not used to being wrong. She studies Yaz's face for a few more seconds before conceding, "I'm sorry. You're right, and I'm sorry."

It is quiet and somewhat awkward until Yaz tries to diffuse some of the muted tension by forcing the Doctor to drink some water.

Afterward, the Doctor swears up and down that she was fine, but Yaz could see after a while she was too exhausted to keep herself upright, and the desk was too uncomfortable to resume a prone position, so with some convincing she had agreed to lay down. Together they shuffled to the other side of the hut, to Yaz's sleeping bag, and after a number of minutes had the Doctor laid down somewhat on her side, propped up with the Doctor's sleeping bag rolled up lengthwise, and covered again with Ryan's.

"You should...rest, too," the Doctor says tiredly, leaving long pauses between words, as Yaz draped the sleeping bag over her.

Yaz nods, "I will do. The sun should be up soon, though. The generator's ready, I'm going to wait for the signal from Graham and Ryan."

"Why did Ryan go?"

"S-sorry?" Yaz kneels beside her.

"I mean, he was...reluctant about descending the cliff. I'm very proud of him...changing his mind, but why...did he do it?"

"We couldn't let Graham go alone, and honestly Ryan was pretty freaked at the state of you."

The Doctor raised her head, "He shouldn't-"

"Ah-ah," Yaz scolds, "You stay put. Look, Ryan, wanted to stay with you too, but his lack of coping skills are second only to yours, so he figured he'd be able to handle the dyspraxia better than he'd handle looking after you."

"Oh," is all she responds. If Yaz didn't know better, she'd say the Doctor's feelings were hurt.

Yaz puts on a smile, "Anyway, so you're stuck with me as a carer."

The Doctor smiles back, "You're doing a...brilliant job… Couldn't ask for anyone better."

Yaz tucks a bit of hair behind her ear, "Er, could I ask you something?"

"'Course."

"Why'd you take Graham earlier? I mean," she felt terribly guilty in saying that Graham was typically the slowest. It didn't make sense to pick him to take on a time sensitive mission.

"I knew I was...slowing down a bit, I figured he'd get...less ahead of me than you would. If given the choice I would've taken you… He complained the entire time, anyway," she grinned at her jest, before continuing on with seriousness, "That, and he'd already suspected...something was wrong. He'd asked me a couple of times."

Yaz makes a face of surprise.

The Doctor looks guilty once again, "I...asked him not to say anything."

The younger woman rubs her forehead and eventually says, "Well, once all is said and done, and you're in a better state, I think we might have to have a family meeting."

The Doctor makes a small nod, and says with what Yaz can only call sarcasm, "Fun."

Yaz reaches over and gave her hand a squeeze, "Anyway, for now you just rest. Home soon."

"Can do." the Doctor mutters, and shuts her eyes.

Yaz sits beside her for several minutes, watching as the transformation of sleep overcomes her features; her muscles relax, her breaths deepen, and she looks...heavier in the way that one does in sleep.

The younger woman goes to watch the treeline from the platform, waiting for the signal.


	10. Chapter 10

She began feeling a little anxious as the first sun peaked across the treeline, and the blue signal from Ryan and Graham had still not come. She glances back into the shelter, studying the unconscious form of the Doctor as she jerks and shudders in a restless, fevered sleep, face contorted in anguish.

A few more minutes pass. She taps her fingers impatiently on the makeshift safety railing of the platform, the second sun starting to cast its light across the forest. She becomes aware of a new scraping, cracking sound, which slowly gets louder and louder. At first confused, Yaz leans over the railing to investigate its source.

Her mouth drops open and she feels her heart sink.

The tide of the river had withdrawn, the phenomenal moving body leaves had shriveled and disappeared, and where its banks had been carving its path, now stood several Sapilin creatures, carefully maneuvering their way closer and closer to the base of the treehouse.

Yaz gripped the railing, paralyzed with the uncertainty of what to do. "Uhh...Doctor, can you hear me?" she called, eyes skating from the approaching monsters to the skyline where the signal could be any second. "Come on, guys, come on."

The second sun was in full view now, "Doctor, wake up!" she hollered over her shoulder, still willing the blue light to appear.

The arch of the third sun starts to stretch across the horizon. The gathering of Sapilin seem to double in number, as vines coil from the earth below and start to form more and more. Yaz thinks her heart leaps from her stomach to her mouth.

"Get in!" she whoops, as a streak of lustrous blue light jettisons from the faraway tree line up to the pale pink sky, and the third sun reaches its peak across the horizon. Yaz turns and sprints to the panel, and triumphantly flips the green switch.

Nothing happens.

Yaz feels like her legs go numb. She frantically flips the switch several times, imploring the generator to power up. The sound of the Sapilin still crescendoing outside. She glances at the still-incapacitated Doctor, and darts to the Doctor's discarded coat. Yaz orders as she ransacks the pockets, "Doctor, please, please wake up!"

Yaz finds the sonic screwdriver and flies back to the panel. She then, admittedly very stupidly, points it at the generator and prays.

Still nothing.

She shakes the tool angrily and bolts to the platform. The creatures are mere meters away now.

Yaz throws one more glance at the Doctor, and then makes for the ladder. Once on the ground, she waves her arms and starts to back away from the approaching horde of eyeless, arboreal monsters, "Oi, you lot! This way!"

The strategy works, for a moment. The Sapilins start slinking towards her. That is until a familiar voice calls to her, "What do you think you're doing?"

Yaz is laden with another bout of dread as she looks up and sees the Doctor, raggedly holding herself half-up on the railing of the platform. Several Sapilins break off from the group and start back toward the treehouse.

The police officer does not have time to respond or react, because then she feels a strange, warm sensation in her hand. She glances down to see the sonic screwdriver she was too frazzled to discard, pulsing and glowing. The pulsing suddenly synching with a familiar wheezing sound. "No." Yaz says, looking back up at the Doctor on the platform above, barely upright, a Sapilin creature starting to ascend the ladder; all of that fading away as the walls of the TARDIS materialized around her.


	11. Chapter 11

Yaz finds herself stood beside the familiar console of the TARDIS, Graham and Ryan standing before her with puzzled looks on their faces.

Ryan immediately nods to the screwdriver in her hand, "Why you have that?"

"Oh my god," she exhales, feeling sick. She takes of running towards the doors, screaming, "Doctor!"

The boys follow immediately.

"Doctor! Doct-" Yaz stops in her tracks. The Sapilin quietly surround the TARDIS where it had materialized around where she had stood. They all turn their gnarled faces in her direction as she exits the ship. No one moves. The guys bump into her back as she halts.

A single creature, the one closest to Yaz, only a foot away, kneels in front of her. She stares at it in shock. The creature slowly raises an arduous limb and presents it to her. As she looks at what must be an arm, a single silver flower morphs and blooms. Yaz only stares.

"You're meant to take it," a voice calls. Yaz is broken from her trance to once again look up to the treehouse platform, to the Doctor standing awkwardly, being gently held up by a pair of creatures. Yaz, still ill at ease, plucks the flower from the creature and nods a timid thank you. She then starts for the treehouse. Ryan and Graham are not far behind. Once they make it up the ladder, they find the Doctor, still supported by the pair of Sapilin, one on either side, thanking the creatures for their help.

"You were all so, so brilliant." the Doctor beams, though she still looks terrible. She miraculously has Ravanac's foil notebook in one hand.

Yaz, bewildered, glances into the treehouse and sees the panel of the generator, lit up in an array of colors and humming softly. "Um, what the hell just happened?" She unconsciously hands the sonic to the Doctor, who takes it with small, purposeful movements.

The Doctor bobs her head, "Did I fail to mention there might be a small delay in transmission?" She smiles.


	12. Chapter 12

The Doctor slowly opens her eyes. The room is dimly lit, but recognizable.

Beside her, sitting on the floor with his back resting against the sofa she was laid across, was Ryan. His knees were drawn up, so that he was resting his phone only inches from his face, engrossed in the game he was playing on it.

She moves her head just enough that the icepack placed on the back of her neck slips off and bounces softly to the floor.

"Hey," he says surprised, but gentle. He rotates his body to face her, picking up the icepack and returning it to the back of her neck.

She looks around a little dazedly, before asking in a dehydrated voice, "Why are we in the library?"

"You don't remember pitching a fit about medbay?" he asks lightly.

She had fevered flashes of him carrying her onto the TARDIS; of Graham forcing her to drink a medicinal concoction the TARDIS had provided; of Yaz helping her change her clothes; of lapses of cognizance as they kept her anesthetized to properly clean her wounds; of Ryan physically restraining her as she attempted to go to the console, or the kitchen, or the ballroom, anywhere but the medbay.

"Oh, right." she said under her breath.

"Yeah, we tried your bedroom, but you ain't got no bed in there, did you know that?" he smiled, "It was either here or the kitchen table."

She couldn't help but smile back. After a minute or so she looked him up and down, "You're not here to yell at me, too, are you?"

"Want me to?" he inclines his head.

"Not particularly," she sinks her face a little further into the cushion.

"Eh, Yaz and Graham told me they already...expressed their concerns. I think for now you should just relax. I'm just here to babysit."

"Where are the others?"

"Sleeping. You need anything?"

She shook her head a little. He picked up his phone to resume his game.

"Ryan?" she says.

"Hm?" he doesn't look up.

The Doctor swallows, "I'm sorry."

He sighs, pauses the screen and faces her again, "I know." He scoots a little closer, "And just so we're clear, I don't think any less of you for hurtin'. You can pack things in all you like. Only so much stuff fits in a certain space," he gestures to the library of their police box, "And not like this, you know what I mean!"

She laughs a little as he smiles, proud of his own joke.

With that, the Doctor closes her eyes and rests.

FIN


End file.
